


Prelude in D-Flat

by Zetaori



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Dark, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-01
Updated: 2011-08-01
Packaged: 2017-10-22 02:23:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/232665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zetaori/pseuds/Zetaori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Charles said he would never use his powers against Erik, he lied.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Prelude in D-Flat

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read/comment on LJ, you can find the story [here](http://zetaori.livejournal.com/22641.html).

"Your gift," Charles says, apropos of nothing but Erik's thoughts, "is exceptional. If you learn to control it, you can do just about anything."

His fingers hover over the keys of the piano, not touching, not yet.

"You could be so powerful, you know, the most powerful mutant of all."

 _You're lying_ , Erik thinks. _Why are you always lying?_

Charles presses down the first keys, D flat and F, then A flat. It's a perfect D flat major triad, but Erik knows it's a lie, a beautiful facade. The hidden truth is less major and a lot less D flat.

Erik leans back and pretends to wait. Charles plays like it's the first time, with closed eyes, his fingers searching for each key, hesitating. He takes the _sostenuto_ and the _con semplice_ quite literal today.

"Relax," he says. "You're safe here."

Everything about Charles is a lie.

\---

The day Charles saved his life (or at least that's what they say), Erik follows him, just out of curiosity. He never said he'd stay.

When he walks away in the dead of night, longing to merge back into the shadows, Charles is already waiting for him.

"I could make you stay," he says, "but I won't." With that, he turns around and walks back in.

And Erik stays.

It isn't like him at all, but there are reasons good enough to justify a sudden change of mind.

\---

Charles plays the same song over and over again, and Erik watches and listens. He doesn't know much about classical music, but he's learning.

He closes his eyes, his thoughts merging with the music. He remembers the relentless pounding of boots as soldier after soldier passes, faceless men that are younger than he is now. They march in step, the occasional rustling of clothes and gear the only indication they are actually separate beings, but that's an illusion. They are just one mind, one idea, one man.

He remembers his fear. It seems distant at first, incomprehensible. He hasn't been afraid for a long time. But now it rushes back to him, a tenseness in his muscles, a shudder down his spine. His heart beat roars in his own ears, amplifying and spiralling up, and he wants to jump and run, but he can't move, he mustn't move because the soldiers are everywhere, a brown solid wall, and if he breathes they'll know. They'll find him. They'll kill him.

He forces his eyes to open, and Charles is looking down on him, reaching out as if he's about to shake him, frowning.

"I'm sorry," Erik chokes. He still finds it hard to breathe, and he forms his hands to fists to stop them from shaking.

Charles' hand touches his forehead, stroking away damp strands of hair.

Erik can't remember when he stopped playing. It feels important, suddenly.

\---

Erik has nightmares, full of fire and mud and muffled cries. He wakes up to Charles rubbing circles on his back, whispering, "You're safe here."

Erik goes back to sleep, and there's nothing but death. He wakes up again, and Charles breathes softly next to him.

Charles sleeps in his bed these days, which, to be honest, has always been too big for Erik alone. He can't remember when it started, but it must have been around the time the nightmares began. Erik has always remembered their taste, their pace, their colours, long after he's stopped dreaming them, but he was sure the images, the sounds, the feelings were forgotten long ago.

It doesn't matter. Suddenly, the nightmares were back, and Charles was there.

"You're safe here," he said then and says now. "If you stay here, no one can harm you."

He falls asleep again to see endless, withered fields without any place to hide. It's dangerous outside, and there's death waiting everywhere.

"Come to me," Charles says, his hand stretched out for him.

\---

"Relax," Charles says, and Erik's eyes snap open. He's panting and sweating, and he isn't sure why.

"Relax," Charles repeats, and Erik takes a deep, shuddering breath and wills his muscles to loosen.

He concentrates on the pattern of the wallpaper, lets his mind follow the intricate swirls and curves, until his eyes fall shut again.

"That's it," Charles whispers, close.

Feeling Charles in his head is still weird after all this time. First, when Charles is going in, it's like an itch, deep inside his skull, and he wants to reach up and scratch, scratch through the skin and bone, but a second later Charles is wherever he wants to go, and the feeling settles down into a dull pressure.

Sometimes, it's like a headache. Occasionally, it's more of a phantom pain. But most of the times, Charles' force hits him hard with a feeling for which he can only come up with the German word before he passes out: Ohnmacht.

\---

It's been too long, and Erik never said he'd stay.

He looks around the room. The bed is untidy, the sheets still tousled. He knows they smell like Charles without walking over. He doesn't feel the need to make the bed. It doesn't feel like his anyway.

Actually, the whole room doesn't feel like his. It probably belongs to some passed away member of the Xavier family, and it's full of mementoes, their stories forgotten.

He possesses nothing but a few clothes and a coin. It fits easily into the suitcase he's come with.

He's stayed for his curiosity, and although he can't claim he's figured anything out yet, he's learned that this isn't the right place for him. It's too calm, too rational, too close.

Nobody seems to understand his impatience, and he doesn't blame them.

When he looks out of the window, he can see Sean, _Banshee_ , flying around. He thinks about staying another night to say goodbye, but then, he won't miss any of them, and they probably won't miss him.

 _No_ , he decides, feeling relief at the thought, he'll leave today.

His hand rests on the handle of his old suitcase, when Charles' voice in his head, detached and casual, asks, "Could you come down for a second, please?"

Erik takes his hand off with a sigh. He'll leave before nightfall. He won't say goodbye, not even to Charles. It's easier that way.

\---

"What's _Ohnmacht_?" Charles asks. He's wearing a suit. A brown, dusty book rests on his lap, kept open somewhere near the end with one finger. With the way he's looking down on him, Erik feels like a patient in psychiatry.

"Huh?"

He blinks against streaming sun light. He doesn't know what time it is. If he's honest, he doesn't even know what day it is, but there's no need to keep track of anything here.

Erik clears his throat. "I'm sorry?" he corrects himself, feeling stupid for his inarticulate answer before.

"I said, what's _Ohnmacht_?"

His pronunciation is off, stumbling over the impossible velar fricative with something like a plosive, and that's why Erik didn't understand him earlier.

"Why?"

Charles turns around, a dark silhouette against the sun-lit window. "Usually, you don't think in German."

Erik feels like this is the wrong place to discuss language, but, as he sinks deeper into the soft cushions, maybe it is.

"It's the feeling when you faint," he says, hearing his own accent in his words. He thought he'd lost it a few years ago. "But it's also a feeling of powerlessness."

He suddenly remembers that he used to pass out all the time when he was young. He can see his mother's face, worried, as he wakes up.

"Mein Junge." She tries to sound reassuring, but the constant worry is etched deep into her face. That's when he heard that word for the first time, in a whispered, anxious tone.

He sits up to look around. He's back on their bed, which is nothing but a few blankets and dirt in the cellar of someone he can't remember the name of. There's knocking from above, rhythmically, not to be let in, but to drive him crazy with fear.

The next second, he's lying in mud, his head bleeding because he fell down on protruding bones of someone rotting next to him. His mother is stroking over his hair as shots echo outside.

Suddenly, he can feel soft fabric under his fingers. Everything is white. He wakes up in a hospital. His mother sits next to the bed, holding his hand. A doctor looks down on him and talks, fast, throwing in dozens of medical terms in Latin.

Erik understands he has a medical condition, an illness that makes him lose his consciousness, leaving him feel disorientated and confused. His mother nods, silent tears running over her face.

Erik shakes it off, struggling against the grip of the scenario like wading through miles of mud, until he reaches the other end and comes back to Charles' study room.

Something about this is weird, but he can't quite put the finger on it. He looks at Charles' figure, the dark curls on the collar of his shirt in the back-light.

He rubs his eyes.

"I didn't have this memory a second ago, Charles," he says, surprised at how tired he sounds.

Charles turns around. He's beautiful, Erik thinks, for the hundredth time.

"But that's what we do here, Erik." He talks slowly, carefully, like Erik is about to snap and attack him. He doesn't seem to be afraid, though. He has no reason to be. "We find the memories you buried and unearth them. It will help you control your powers."

It will help him develop. It will help him turn into the best man he can possibly be. It will help him become a deadly weapon.

Erik remembers.

"But this is different," he says.

He doesn't like the way Charles looks at him. He doesn't like to see him frown. He wants to reach out and smooth his forehead, kiss his temples, smother him in tears.

"You should get some sleep," Charles says. "Those nightmares are wearing you out."

Erik feels fatigue tug at the corners of his mind. "Just stay," he says and reaches out.

Charles takes his hand. "Of course."

\---

Erik wakes up in his room. He's alone. Something is different.

He rubs his eyes and sits up. He's memorized all those tiny, useless, meaningless relics that are scattered over every available surface, and they are all in place.

It takes him a while to realise his suitcase is in the corner of his room instead of under his bed.

He walks over and opens it.

It is packed.

He has no idea why.

He empties all the contents on the bed and goes to see if there's some breakfast left.

Charles greets him with a smile and pours milk into his coffee. Their fingers meet when he hands over the cup. Erik smiles back.

\---

Watching Charles play, Erik stands behind him and looks down on the keys. They're black and white, just like chess pieces, but Charles' fingers slide over them indiscriminately.

Erik remembers he used to think the white keys would make the happy sounds, leaving all sadness to the black ones. He learned to play a few years ago, but he can only play songs this piano has never heard before and will never hear.

This is a piano that can only play classical music. He'd never dare touch it. It's Charles'.

"What is it called?" Erik asks.

Charles' fingers don't stop. He's playing lightly and evenly today, emotions hidden away.

"It's a Prelude."

Of course, Erik thinks. Classical pieces never have names.

Later, when he's back in the room that's supposed to be his, he wonders. A prelude to what? It's all Charles ever plays.

He's just pretending not to understand for a moment, but of course it makes perfect sense. It's what Charles always does. Waiting for something.

There are clothes all over his bed. Someone must have been in here, maybe looking for something. He doesn't have anything worth looking for.

He can still hear Charles play downstairs. He looks at the clothes. There's something in his throat, and he coughs.

An idea hits him, something he's been meaning to do for a long time, but always forgot. He pats his pockets for a pen and searches the room for a slip of paper.

With his hand shaking, he writes down, _I'm beginning to think Charles makes me remember things that aren't real._

He coughs again, but the thing in his throat doesn't move. It just sticks there, burning, choking him.

He doubles over.

The sounds from below stop abruptly and he can hear Charles' footsteps rushing up the stairs. He falls towards him and barely registers how Charles catches him and helps him lie down on the bed.

Sleep drowns him for a few moments, and when he comes up again, the sun has settled. Charles is stretched out next to him, reading. Erik notices he's curled up against him in his sleep. He moves, every muscle in his body hurting from the uncomfortable position.

Without looking up, Charles reaches out and pulls him close. Erik's head ends up on Charles' chest, and he falls asleep to his heart beating.

The nightmares stay away this time. He dreams nothing, nothing but blackness and shadows moving.

\---

He wakes up alone. The house smells like coffee. He changes his clothes and looks out of the window. It promises to be a good day, sunny, not too hot. He could take a run after breakfast and then watch Charles' training, which is always entertaining.

His eyes get caught on a tiny slip of paper on his desk. He walks over, carefully for no particular reason, and reads the words.

He stares at them for solid minutes. Then, he crosses them out three times.

\---

Erik looks up from the mud on his shabby boots that are still two sizes too big. It's raining in torrents, but it always does.

In front of the huge iron gates that are forever closed for people like him, there is a tiny boy with dark hair and huge blue eyes. His school uniform is slowly getting soaked, but it's perfectly clean.

There are at least three things wrong with this scenario. One is that Erik could never just stand there and stare at the gate without getting hit until he bleeds and dragged off to some extra work. Secondly, the boy's shoes are too clean. They are muddy where he stands, but there is no way he's walked anywhere without getting dirt on the sides and top, let alone his white socks.

Last and probably most obviously, the boy can't be here. He can't be here because he wasn't.

There was never a tiny English boy standing at the gates of Auschwitz, reaching out for him, promising him everything, saying, "You just have to trust me."

But Erik walks over and takes his hand.

Erik trusts Charles.

It's easy like that. It's easy even though there's a slip of paper on his desk, words scribbled in every corner, everything crossed out again. It's easy because there's a pull, a wish, a hot desire in Erik to trust Charles.

\---

The thought of shutting Charles out has been there since the first moment he heard him in his head. It's a natural response, or at least what he assumes must be natural. But the barriers he tried to create were never strong enough.

He needs something physical, maybe metal, between his thoughts and Charles.

Charles frowns over his cup of tea, but he doesn't respond. He's still pretending not to read his mind without permission.

Charles' gift, Erik begins to realise, slowly, carefully, isn't that different from his own. He can shape things, turn things into something else, make them real.

It's just that he's sick of being subjected to this. He's never wanted that.

When he's suddenly presented with a way out of this scenario, he doesn't hesitate. The world feels a bit lonelier with the helmet on, but also a lot more in his control.

He realises, though, that he'll be stuck with it for the rest of his life, one way or the other. When he takes it off, it'll always be an invitation.

He doesn't regret his decision. Not usually. The helmet proves Charles is always out there.

\---

It's been years, but it doesn't matter. The world has ended a hundred times and it's still the same.

Erik walks up to Charles playing the piano. They're alone, as they always are, and Erik pulls off the helmet.

He knows the piece by heart by now. He listened to it on countless records and in concert, but nobody plays it like Charles, and Charles plays it differently every time. Sometimes, Erik is sure it's a code, and if he were just able to figure it out, he could understand. If he calculated the force and nuance of each single sound, he could solve the mystery that is Charles.

Every thought and emotion seems hidden in this piece, just beneath the surface. He hopes, against all reason, that the way Charles plays is a true moment of honesty. Maybe Charles does it simply to taunt him, dangling answers just out of reach.

It doesn't matter what he believes. He can't figure it out anyway.

The sounds are just as familiar as the curls of Charles' hair, his white skin, the curve of his back. He listens the last chords fade before he moves to face him.

"How have you been?" Charles asks, but they both know he doesn't need to answer.

Erik bends down to kiss him, and Charles' mouth is warm and welcoming. He's missed him. He's missed him so much.

\---

Erik wakes up, and he instantly knows he's moved a long distance. He's always been able to tell, but he still hasn't figured out how and why. It's got something to do with Earth's gravitational field. Erik can feel the differences in it, like a compass.

Charles would be able to figure it out quickly. He's good with those things. But Erik hasn't told him, and he's been very careful not to think about it. Of course he can never be sure what Charles knows.

When he blinks, he sees the same hotel room he's fallen asleep in and Charles' back at the same piano.

"I know this is not real!" Erik shouts over the hammering G sharp.

One lesson Erik has learned is that although they say A flat and G sharp is the same note, it really isn't.

In every other version of this prelude he's ever listened to, the middle part is slow, tantalising with a hint of melancholia. When Charles plays it, it's violent, fast and haunting. His fingers hit down on the keys with a force he never exerts anywhere else. Charles doesn't need physicality, except for when he plays.

"Trust me," Charles says in his head.

He hammers the G sharp in octaves now, and it's too loud to hear anything else. Observing the balance between Charles' left and right hand, Erik tries to judge what he's going for these days.

There was a time when he was sure that the fact Charles chose this piece as his favourite was an indication for his struggle, the good part of him trying to fight down whatever lurked in the shadows.

It was an illusion, just like anything else.

"You know, it's a good thing I know you are the good guy and I am the bad one, because otherwise I'd start wondering," Erik shouts.

The corners of Charles' lips curl up. He settles down in the softer ending part, mirroring the first part, both of it a lie.

Erik wants to kiss him again.

\---

Charles pants under him, his legs wrapped around his body, giving away the illusion. His fingers are digging into Erik's back. He has cold fingers. He always had, making Erik want to take them between his hands to warm them.

Erik thrusts into him. He's warm enough inside, and Erik can't help but moan at the feeling.

His hips find their rhythm quickly. It's always the same, a steady pounding of 104 beats per minute.

"Why are you always playing this piece?" Erik asks, his blood rushing in his ears. He's close, but he can keep it up as long as he needs to.

"It's Chopin," Charles answers, as if that's all that needed to be said.

Erik changes his angle, making him grunt against his neck.

"If you play Chopin, you never need anything else in your life," he adds, breathless.

It should scare Erik how much sense that makes to him.

Charles arches his back as he comes, reaching out with his mind to pull Erik with him.

They can both stay for this night.

\---

Erik remembers how it started. He remembers struggling under water, he remembers running, but he doesn't remember staying.

He remembers nagging doubts and endless trust.

Most of all, he remembers Charles' fingers, stroking over his face in wonder and disbelief, that very first night, sending cold shivers all through his body. It's a new form of arousal, one that will always stay reserved for Charles.

They talk a lot in the beginning. Charles gets fidgety when he explains his gift, but he smiles. "I'd never use it without permission," he says. "I'll never use it on you."

Erik reaches up to his own face to capture Charles' cold fingers between his own. He needs to keep him warm and safe.

"I promise," Charles whispers, his head falling against his chest. "I promise."

\---

"Do you remember our first time?" Charles' voice has never changed.

Erik stretches out, listening to Charles' slow, deliberate rendition of the middle part, savouring every chord.

"Our first time doing what? _Making love_?" He's become sarcastic. Maybe he's always been and just starts noticing now.

Charles smiles. Erik leans down to kiss him. It's almost a reflex.

Charles gets up to stand at the window. The music doesn't stop. He doesn't even try to hide his lies any more.

"Yeah, I remember."

Charles doesn't turn around. There's amusement in his voice. "You had brought chains."

Suddenly, Erik is back again, standing in front of Charles' bedroom. He's nervous, but he can handle it. He knows Charles wants this. He knows he does. They both know it's going to happen.

Charles is not quite ready to let him slip into the memory. He's turned around from the window by the time Erik has managed to open his eyes.

"I've never tried to hide what I am," Charles says. "We're so similar in this respect."

Erik reaches out, and Charles walks over to the bed where Erik lies, slipping easily against his chest. He loves stroking over Charles' hair, feeling his body move against his. It's all an illusion, obviously, but a beautiful one.

"I'm just ?" Charles' voice breaks, and Erik looks down, alarmed. Charles doesn't cry often. He pulls him closer, feeling him shake. "I was just doing what I had to."

Maybe it's actually the first time he's admitting what Erik knew all along, but it doesn't change anything.

"You still do," Erik answers. "You always did."

"It's natural for me."

Erik closes his eyes. He can feel the metal vibrate and resonate without even trying, in the walls, in the room, in Charles' body. "I know."

There's something humming between them, a thought Charles thinks very hard, but tries to keep from being projected. Erik can feel the outlines of it. It's a wish or a want or a need for Erik to understand, just understand.

Whispering against Charles' hair, without moving his lips, Erik says that he understands perfectly well.

"Let's go back now," Charles says.

Erik nods and the world goes black around him.

\---

Erik is standing in front of the door to Charles' bedroom. He's brought chains, slung casually over his arm.

Charles opens the doors. His eyebrow quivers up in bemused amusement. Erik reaches out and tilts Charles' face with the tip of his fingers until he's forced to look into his eyes. Immediately, without any kind of transition, Charles' amusement gets replaced by pure desire, and he walks backwards when Erik enters the room.

Erik pulls his turtle neck over his head and kicks away his pants, watching Charles undress, just as slowly. They don't have to hurry.

Charles lets himself get tied up against the bed frame with a smile Erik can't quite fathom at this point. He twists the chains around Charles' wrists again and again, until they must be a heavy weight that pulls him down and keeps him up at the same time. He watches from the other side of the room, his hand barely raised to keep the metal under control. It's the part he's been envisioning, looking forward to most, and it's every tiny bit as good as he imagined, except maybe for the way Charles struggles against his bonds, testing them clearly just for the show.

Erik decides to get over there and wipe the look off his face.

He claims Charles' mouth with triumph and swallows down every tiny noise he makes. Charles struggles against the metal, desperate for more and for something else entirely.

Erik knows what it is.

"Yeah," Charles moans against him. "Do it."

"I thought you promised you wouldn't read my mind?" Erik pushes down on him and makes both of them grunt in surprise at the feeling.

"I promised a lot of things," Charles says, and it hangs there for a second, but Erik can't pay attention, not now, not when Charles arches up against him.

Erik knows what Charles needs. He probably doesn't deserve it, hasn't exactly earned his trust, but Erik wants to give it. He needs to give it.

Charles' eyes widen in anticipation, and Erik presses his forehead against his. "Take it. Take everything you want."

It's a strange sensation, making him dizzy, but he can't deny it's sensual and intimate and he wants Charles to push deeper and for once, he isn't afraid of what he might find. He isn't afraid at all.

There's a need in Erik, one that feels alien but he doesn't care, how could he, when all he wants to do is pull Charles into his lap and thrust up into him until the world fades around him.

The desire to tighten the shackles, to pull and pull until they hurt is strong, but Erik can feel Charles isn't scared. Charles knows he would never hurt him. So he doesn't.

Erik can barely feel his own body any more. Everything is blurring and merging in an endless loop of feedback, blackening out at the edges.

Erik's release is unexpected and catapults him back into his body to feel every muscle twitch. Charles shakes against him and holds on.

Erik can feel the metal loosening already and he tosses the chains away, pulling Charles into his arms. He hasn't opened his eyes yet, so Erik watches him and tries to remember at which point he lost complete control over everything.

He can't help but reach out and trace Charles' cheekbones, his temple with his finger in the useless attempt to figure out what has just happened.

He'll learn quickly that it doesn't matter. What matters is that Charles is in his arms.

\---

In earlier days, Erik would stop and wonder about everything Charles might be capable of. Everyone knows he can read thoughts and project thoughts, but he can also control people's mind, and nobody ever talks about that. It's like an unspoken secret that he can slip into your consciousness, manipulate your movements and thoughts and pull memories to the surface that were long-forgotten.

What Erik would wonder about wasn't what Charles says he can do. It was what he doesn't say.

But everything has stopped mattering long ago.

Their first time, the countless nights and days, kisses and moans and falling asleep together, that's just a prelude, a start.

It isn't important to remember that everything Charles says is a lie. Erik can search his world for signs, listen for the constant throb of quavers and check Earth's gravitation, but what really matters is if Charles is with him.

What matters is only one question.

"If I never put on the helmet again, can we live like that forever? Can we stay together, like this?"

Charles plays chords, and there's no way to tell if it's the beginning or the end. It's nothing but a prelude to nowhere.


End file.
